Many search marketers have experimented with call tracking and measurement as a way to capture online-to-offline consumer activity and determine which ads and campaigns are generating calls. But there has also been debate about whether unique phone numbers required by call tracking harms SEO especially for local advertisers. Some new developments in the field make a compelling argument for call tracking and analytics, at the very least among enterprises or large advertisers trying to generate calls to call centers. Search marketing platform Kenshoo earlier this summer introduced what it cal [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: AdWords | Search Marketing: General | Search Marketing: Landing Pages | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | SEM Tools: Keyword Research | SEM Tools: Web Analytics | SEO: Local

Creating a compelling online experience is top of mind for most businesses. Many of us use numerous tools and technologies to ensure we can achieve this goal. Yet a survey we conducted of nearly 600 online businesses found that while companies are employing many different on-site technologies, the majority (68 percent) is unsure about whether or not they are effectively utilizing the important data gleaned through these applications to recruit new business and maintain customer loyalty. Additionally, only a little over half (55 percent) say they integrate these various applications—which [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Features: Analysis | Search Marketing: General

Trada announced a $5.75 million "C" round this morning. It was led by Google Ventures and early investor Foundry Group. Trada CEO Niel Robertson told me yesterday that the money will be used for to get into display (and eventually video and mobile), as well as to expand into non-US markets and develop new tools for agencies. What is Trada? you ask. Trada is a relatively new "crowdsourced search marketplace." It brings together freelance search marketers and advertiser campaigns and gets multiple people to work on those campaigns. In fact the company says that it has an average of 24 search [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: Community | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Outsourcing

Your local newspaper may soon offer SEO services. Heck, maybe it already is. Two of the three biggest newspaper publishers in the U.S. have recently announced that they're selling marketing services to small/local businesses ... and those services include things like SEO, local search marketing, and more. Gannett Newspapers is the latest to hop on the SEO bandwagon. The nation's number one publisher recently opened GannettLocal, a small business marketing division based in Phoenix. The independent Gannett Blog recently quoted a memo written by GannettLocal chief Brad Robertson, who expla [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: General | SEO: General | Top News

Many marketers understand Twitter search is a powerful way to monitor brand mentions and reach out to customers. But I think few realize what a powerful platform it provides to reach out on non-branded generic mentions. To better illustrate this, let me introduce the "Anyone Know" Twitter search. Actually, I'll explain "Anyone Know" toward the end of this article. To provide the right context for it, I first need to cover the brand monitoring that's already so well known. Brand Monitoring On Twitter Comcast is the classic brand monitoring story, covered over and over again. Comcast wa [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: General | Search Engines: Answer Search Engines | Search Engines: Help Engines | Search Engines: Real Time Search | Search Marketing: General | Top News | Twitter

Venerable search marketing firm iCrossing is about to be acquired by publisher Hearst, according to the Wall Street Journal: Under the deal, which is in the final stages of negotiations, iCrossing, one of the nation's biggest independent digital-marketing shops, is likely to fetch about $375 million, plus bonus payments if it reaches certain targets, these people said. The article goes on to discuss how publishers may be trying to take digital marketing in-house rather than relying as much on traditional agencies. And it says the deal could still fall apart. A few years ago a number of [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: Acquisitions

Recession? Economic slowdown? Financial gloom-and-doom? Not online, and not as far as Internet advertising is concerned. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) says that U.S. online ad revenue hit an all-time high of $6.3 billion in Q4 of 2009, a 2.6% increase over the fourth quarter of 2008 and a 14% increase over Q3 of 2009. My overdramatic opening sentence aside, the economic downturn obviously did impact online advertising last year: The IAB says U.S. ad revenues for all of 2009 dropped 3.4% from 2008 to $22.7 billion. Search and display ads continue to be the strongest ad formats, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Search Ads: Video | Search Marketing: General | Stats: General

Yesterday there were three press releases from three search platforms, two aimed partly or substantially at the local market, that are incorporating the Facebook Ads API into their platform capabilities: Marin Software, Clickable and Kenshoo. Here are excerpts from the three releases: Marin Software: Marin Search Marketer will provide marketers with the tools necessary to manage large-scale advertising programs through Facebook Ads. By marrying impression, click, and cost data with conversion and revenue data, Marin Search Marketer will provide a complete view of campaign ROI and effec [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing: Branding | Search Marketing: General | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing

Yahoo was the first of the major search engines to use search query data to inform and influence subsequent display ad serving. However, as Magnetic CEO Josh Shatkin-Margolis pointed out to me, that only works within the Yahoo network, not across the broader internet. He would know, having worked as a Director of Engineering at Yahoo, and before that at DoubleClick and Performics. What his company Magnetic (previously known as Domdex) is doing is seeking to make search re-targeting available to potentially any publisher, ad network or ad exchange that wants to buy the query data. The compa [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing: General | Search Marketing: Search Term Research

Despite spending millions of dollars on paid search, Fortune 500 companies continue to fail when it comes to natural search visibility. That's the conclusion of "Natural Search Trends of the Fortune 500: Q4/2009," the latest study released today by Conductor, a New York-based SEO services/technology firm. Some key takeaways from Conductor's survey of Fortune 500 search marketing efforts include: Only 15% of Fortune 500 companies have "mid to strong presence" in natural search results for the same keywords on which they advertise the most. 53% have "no natural search visibility for the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Marketing: General | SEO: General | Stats: General

Like Amazon did several months ago to U.S. affiliates, Amazon sent an email to their UK affiliates basically preventing them from using certain paid search techniques and free search techniques to drive sales to Amazon. The message sent to their UK affiliates yesterday read: After careful review of our Associates programme, we have made the decision that as of February 1, 2010, we will no longer pay referral fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.co.uk, http://astore.amazon.co.uk or www.javari.co.uk through keyword bidding or other paid search on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, or any other [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: General | SEO: General

Here we are, starting the second full week of 2010. Chances are good that you've already made your own marketing resolutions for the new year, or perhaps penned your own set of predictions for what 2010 will mean to online marketers. If so, you're not alone; there's been a lot of thinking about the new year amongst internet marketers. Just like last year, I've been collecting links to as many articles as I could find that offer predictions and resolutions for 2010 to create the following big list. And you're welcome to let me know what I missed down in the comments. SEO Search Engine [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Marketing: General | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | Search Marketing: Mobile | SEM Industry: General | SEO: General | Top News

Staring into a crystal ball is a dangerous undertaking, especially when you’re attempting to predict the future of a market as dynamic as paid search. Leading analysts continue to project that paid search marketing spend in the U.S. will grow from $13 billion in 2009 to $26 billion by the year 2014. But how this growth will happen remains unclear. One thing is certain, as more dollars flow into paid search, the number of tactics, targeting options and channels available for search marketers will need to grow to ensure that search campaigns can deliver ever-increasing ROI. Here are five pr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Features: Analysis | Search Marketing: General

I shouldn't take the bait -- Robert Scoble's latest missive that SEO isn't important. But sometimes I can't help myself for wanting to provide some perspective. I've covered the space going on 14 years now. I've heard the SEO is dead spiel over and over and over again. I feel like a revisit to the first major prediction of this back in 1997 is in order. Somehow, it has survived since then. In that year, the Online Advertising Discussion List was one of the primary ways that internet marketers communicated with each other about trends and tactics. We didn't have forums. We didn't have [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: General | SEO: General

According to ad network Chitika, Bing users are demonstrating a willingness to click on ads more often than Google users. This is consistent with similar data the company released in July of this year that showed Bing outperforming Google with click-through rates (CTR). The data come from a sample of well over 100 million impressions on Chitika’s network. The company said CTRs on "Bing [are] over 75% higher than those who come from Google." However, AOL users show the greatest CTRs at 2.5 percent. An important caveat to all this is that Google's search volumes are much higher t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: Stats

In this post I'm combining two search trends reports: early Q4 search spending data from SearchIgnite and excerpts from a terrific Q3 local search spending report from WebVisible. Both show gains by Bing. The WebVisible report also shows significant improvements by Yahoo. Based on "41 million clicks on Google, Yahoo! and Bing during Q3-Q4 of 2008 and 2009," SearchIgnite found that Bing is doing well with retailers (and e-commerce consumers): Retailers have spent 47% more on search ads on Bing in Q4 this year than during this same time period in 2008, with Bing now accounting for 8% of all [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Search Marketing: General | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | Stats: General

In case you didn't see it there was an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning that seeks to capture a kind of shift or broadening of advertisers' attitudes toward search marketing. Formerly search was something of an island and not well integrated into wider marketing campaigns. Many search + display studies and several years later it appears that marketers have developed a somewhat more nuanced view of search in the context of broader consumer behavior. Here are some bits from the article: Sprint is buying the top ads tied to phrases consumers tend to search for when they are clo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: DoubleClick | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing: Branding | Search Marketing: General

Two reports have come out almost simultaneously, from Efficient Frontier and SearchIgnite, offering insights into the US paid search market for Q3 2009. The two data sets are based on client search campaigns managed by both firms. The data are directionally consistent in most cases but slightly different in terms of specific percentages and figures. Search spending overall: Efficient Frontier: SearchIgnite: Share of paid-search ad spend: Efficient Frontier: SearchIgnite: Bing specifics: Efficient Frontier offers some additional detail on Bing in p [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats

Search ad spending is stabilizing, advertisers are getting smarter, and Bing is making gains on Google and Yahoo. Those are a few of the trends cited in the latest research report from search marketing provider Efficient Frontier. The company regularly shares reports based on data collected from a portion of its U.S. advertisers. This new report covers nearly 81 billion impressions and 722 million clicks on search and content ads on the three major search engines during Q2 of this year. The report shows that overall ad spend during Q2 2009 was down 21% from a year ago, but that's better tha [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: Stats | Top News

Trade magazine AdWeek and pollster Harris Interactive conducted a survey in early June among 2,521 US adults. People were asked what types of ads they found most "helpful" and what types of ads they ignored. Below are the top-line results as well as the age and geographically segmented data. Most helpful in making purchase decisions: 37 percent say that television ads are most helpful 17 percent say newspaper ads are most helpful 14 percent say search engine ads are helpful Radio ads (3 percent) and Internet banner ads (1 percent) are not considered helpful by many people 28 per [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Features: Analysis | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: Stats | Stats: General | Stats: Relevancy | Top News